Coffee and alcohol are two of the most fundamental substances to our civilization.
There’s this funny theory I’ve heard:
Coffee is what helped lead to modern civilization.
See, it’s kind of a myth that everyone boozed all day before the 20th century. Clean water existed. It just took more effort and resources before modern technology hit the scene (just like everything else).
So people did drink clean water. Just less of it. Which, in my uninformed opinion, probably led to higher alcohol consumption.
Then, Turkey (as the Ottoman Empire) introduced coffee to Europe in the early 16th century.
Caffeine tends to make you more focused and productive than alcohol.
Europeans began replacing some of their imbibing with coffee, and the caffeine began to work its magic.
Scale that up, and you suddenly have a civilization-level explosion in physical and intellectual productivity.
Hence, the theory.
I don’t know how true this theory is, but it’s entertaining to think about…
Which brings me to today’s Email Breakdown. It’s from Death Wish Coffee. You may have heard of them — they make coffee with WAY more caffeine than the average cuppa.
I wonder if we’d be living on other planets by now if the folks of the 1500s had access to Death Wish…
Anyways:
This brand has a great sense of humor and isn’t afraid to show it. I enjoy reading their emails, even the shorter, promo-focused ones like this one.
Check it out…
| Table of Contents |
| About Death Wish Coffee The Email: Celebrating a Product Anniversary The Subject Line and Preview Text: The Body Copy Takeaways What to Do Next |
About Death Wish Coffee
Death Wish Coffee is a coffee brand known for its high-caffeine coffee.
Death Wish was founded in 2012 by Mike Brown in Saratoga Springs, New York. According to my reading, Mike was an accountant in his 20s who realized it wasn’t for him (wow, that’s literally my story).
He quit his job, spent a year in coffee shops, and eventually launched his own.
It didn’t do too well at first. He had far too much inventory, much of which wasn’t even coffee. But during those doldrums, he noticed customers always asked for his strongest coffee.
That sparked an idea: Maybe there’s a niche for “really strong coffee!”
So, with business being slow, he played with samples from different importers and eventually developed his own blend… birthing Death Wish Coffee.
Death Wish is known for having TWICE AS MUCH caffeine as your average cuppa. But it’s gained quite the reputation for things like:
- Winning Intuit QuickBooks’ 2015 “Small Business, Big Game” competition (giving it a FREE Super Bowl commercial spot)
- Mike Brown winning EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017
- Mike Brown making it onto Albany Business Review’s 2018 list of 40 Under 40
- Sending an instant, freeze-dried version of Death Wish Coffee to the International Space Station aboard the Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket with the Dragon capsule
Death Wish sells its coffee primarily online but also in stores. Today, it regularly develops new flavors and also sells Death Wish merchandise and apparel.
The Email: Celebrating a Product Anniversary
Today’s email is a celebration — one full year of a Death Wish Coffee flavor! Death Wish celebrated with a flash deal:
Death Wish’s signature email style is a black background with brown and beige colors (since, well, it sells coffee).
My initial impression is that it’s bold (like the coffee). It’s nice to look at, too, making good use of white (or, rather, black) space.
One other note:
The image on the right side, near the middle, is actually a flashing graphic that swaps between the bag of coffee beans and the pods. I can’t exactly represent that in this blog post, so thought I’d let you know.
The Subject Line and Preview Text:
Subject line blends curiosity with personality:
The customer isn’t sure what Death Wish is referring to. The customer’s first purchase? The anniversary of a new employee or CEO?
The all-caps “YEAR” helps the subject stick out a bit, and the ellipsis helps draw the reader to the preview text:
There’s the payoff within the subject-preview complex. The reader can now infer it’s been a year since vanilla came out.
I like the “the sweet stuff” bit at the end. It’s got some personality to it. Death Wish has a particular voice and writes a lot of emails like this (as you’ll see).
The Body Copy
The first section, as per usual, is a logo + headline:
“Vanillaversary” is clever. This is the kind of thing I love — generating ideas that balance ingenuity with usefulness.
The reader knows exactly what this means, especially after the subject and preview:
An anniversary sale for the vanilla flavor. The words “flash deal” then up the urgency by implying a short promo window.
Next is the first block of copy:
This block of copy gives the brand and reader a chance to reflect on a whole year of what I assume is a popular flavor.
The brand voice sticks out again. “Sensual, sweet little thing” makes the reader chuckle a bit.
You can tell Death Wish knows because of the very next sentence… and then uses that as a fun justification to buy the coffee.
It appeals to the identity of being a little different (which is part of Death Wishes’s personality, per my reading of the brand’s site).
What’s that? You ordered more humor and personality?
Coming right up!
Yet another example of making customers “laugh their way into pulling out their credit cards.” Laughter’s a great bonding mechanism.
Your coffee can be good, but lots of coffee is good. You have to give people a reason to buy from you. Being a brand that genuinely entertains (and is relatable) can be that reason.
Death Wish then delivers some testimonials to seal the deal:
Testimonial selection is an art and science, not just “throwing testimonials at the reader.” You can do a lot with testimonials.
Here, Death Wish addressed different selling points/objections in each testimonial:
Testimonial 1: This one speaks to the reader’s desire to have a flavored coffee without the artificial ingredients. It sets Death Wish above the competitors in flavor and healthiness.
Testimonial 2: This one expands the Vanilla flavor’s “use case.” It’s good iced or hot, giving readers a reason to buy it in any season (like that rhyme?). More value for the price.
Testimonial 3: This hypes up the flavor itself and helps Death Wish distinguish its Vanilla from the “vanilla” vanillas its competitors offer.
See what I mean? Testimonials can cover a lot of ground.
I like the color difference between these and the “better than your ex” section. A subtle visual way to move from Voice of Brand to Voice of Customer.
As for that flashing graphic I mentioned way earlier, here’s the other image it shows:
See, this is the bag of ground coffee. Earlier, in the “The Email” section, I showed the instant pods version.
While normally I don’t like this style of moving graphics in an email, this one has a purpose. It shows the reader they can get the coffee in both versions while saving email space. It’s not flashy for the sake of being flashy. It’s also likely to get some clicks since it just shows the product.
We come to the final section, the footer:
Throwing a templatized, evergreen Subscribe & Save reminder is a smart idea for consumables, such as coffee.
If the customer is already a customer, it keeps Subscribe & Save at top of mind and gives them an easy way to set up.
Then, there are the social media links. Nothing special there.
What I really like is that tiny line at the top of the “fine print.”
“Ruining all other coffee since 2012. Sorry, not sorry.”
That’s called swagger. It fits Death Wish perfectly, too. It adds a dash of “polarization,” which pushes away “meh” customers and pulls in those “hell yes” buyers.
It’s also makes you chuckle — like many other pieces of the email.
Takeaways
Here are some big takeaways:
1. The Copy Mechanics
Here are some mechanical takeaways:
Brand Voice
Death Wish infuses its brand voice throughout the email with humor and irreverent remarks. Phrases like “subtly sensual, sweet little thing” to describe the flavor or “Better than your ex, this brew makes great first impressions” get the reader to laugh and loosen up a bit.
Second-person language
Death Wish has a lot of “yous” in the email. This grabs the reader’s attention because Death Wish talks to the reader rather than about the brand/flavor.
Even when they use first-person, it shows up as “our lives” in “Can you believe it’s been a year since this subtly sensual, sweet little thing stepped in our lives” — which includes the reader in the “our.” It implicitly says “You are part of the Death Wish community.”
Testimonial usage
Death Wish Coffee used each testimonial to target a different selling point or objection (and sometimes both in one testimonial).
This leverages voice of customer to tackle individual hesitations, driving sales from a broad spectrum of the readers.
2. The Email Structure
The email structure is as follows:
- Logo
- Headline + Promo Announcement
- Promo Intro Copy
- First CTA
- Product Copy
- Testimonial Section
- Graphic displaying product versions
- Subscribe & Save Reminder Block
- Footer
The whole email is clickable. However, I’d add another CTA button at the bottom just to trigger that urge in the reader to click through.
3. The Overall Strategy
This is a product anniversary campaign. So the big strategy takeaway:
Use a product’s anniversary to feature it and sell some of it. Slap a discount on it, too, if you must, since the anniversary justifies it.
Not only is this an easy campaign to craft…
But it helps you feature more of your offers — especially those that don’t get enough love.
You can always run storewide discounts for company anniversaries, but those company anniversaries are likely to feature your top sellers or the “product that started it all.” Especially since the latter was effectively “created” when your business was created from the customer’s perspective.
Hence, using these for back-end products or more specialized offers.
The campaign itself can’t be too long since it’s an anniversary.
You don’t celebrate your wedding anniversary for a whole week, after all.
So a brand could send two emails on the anniversary day, then “extend” the sale one more day to bring in sales from people who inevitably demand to buy after the sale’s over.
Lastly:
You could do it every anniversary if you wanted. Not just the 1st or 10th. Easy way to bring more of your offers to the forefront.
What to Do Next
- Get on my email list using the signup form below for more Email Breakdowns and other helpful marketing content.
- Share this with someone who might find it helpful (or entertaining).
- Reach out to me if you want help writing emails like this one.
- Check out Death Wish Coffee for a little (read: a LOT of) extra kick in your morning cup o’ joe.